


I Am Death

by devilsduplicity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsduplicity/pseuds/devilsduplicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean kicks ass and takes names and doesn't take 'no' for an answer, and this hasn't changed simply because he's decided to sit down and have a polite conversation with the man who could have potentially kidnapped Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Death

The man in front of Dean is very quiet, and his silence breeds so thick and so strong and so quick that the room seems to fall into a vacuum. The tinkle of glass knocking against glass, of drunkards chortling at the bar, of the bell ringing repeatedly each time the door to the establishment is opened, each time it is shut, the heavy swallow of alcohol burning down desperate throats, of a jukebox whining out the high tones of a tuneless song; all of it is a whisper.  
  
All of it is a whisper because of this man.  
  
"What have you done with him?"  
  
Dean kicks ass and takes names and doesn't take 'no' for an answer, and this hasn't changed simply because he's decided to sit down and have a polite conversation with the man who could have potentially kidnapped Sam.  
  
The man has pale hands and long fingernails; he is wearing a hood that makes Dean think of  _A Christmas Carol_  and a coat that reaches to his knees and makes him look like a pillar of black, black, black.  
  
Dean wants to punch him.  
  
Dean wants to slide back that hood, wrap his fingers around the scrawny little neck he can see outlined in the shadow the cowl leaves behind, and throttle the man.  
  
He orders a beer instead, because, hell, if you can't have wrath, indulgence is the next best thing.  
  
There is no movement of lips or skin sliding against skin, but suddenly Dean  _knows_ , so when the man stands up and moves stiffly towards the front door, when graceful motions are offset by the slump of a shoulder and the tilt of a hidden head, Dean knows, he knows, he fucking  _knows_.  
  
I am Death and he is me and the little voice in the back of his head kept saying  _you are mine_.  
  
  


\------

  
  
Death likes to [play games](http://sharp-teeth.livejournal.com/1436.html?thread=336284). He's atrociously good at chess, and he has had enough dealings with Fate to make those of chance tilt in his favor. He's never been challenged to a game of Twister, but he figures he would win anyways; nothing says 'flexible' like skeletal limbs and a ghostly pallor. It helps that he can break his bones and piece them back together.  
  
He isn't a bad guy, really. He's just sort of misunderstood, and a little creepy, and he smells like a graveyard, but Dean shares attributes of the first and is veritably immune to the last, so it doesn't take much effort to ignore the second.  
  
Because Death knows where Sam is -- Dean can  _sense_  it.  
  
 _CHECKMATE._  
  
Dean jumps out of his skin with the simple gesture of a blink.  
  
It's the first time he's heard Death speak, and it's weird because it's inside his own head. It isn't like a voice, either. It feels like someone is shouting, but the volume is turned down so it sounds more like an annoying buzz. He hears the white noise more than he can hear the formation of certain syllables, and it is the execution of these words etching themselves onto his psyche that gives him the ability to understand the man in front of him rather than any sense of aural perception.  
  
He doesn't like it, because it sort of breaks his brain, and he doesn't even want to be playing a stupid fucking game of chess, but the only way to find out where his brother is is to get this entity to talk.  
  
Which he just did.  
  
Which was funny, because it felt like the voice was coming from the back of his head, and the man was sitting in front of him, so it made Dean wonder if Death was omnipresent.  
  
"Rock, paper, scissors?" he asks, and the cowl turns towards him as a shaky hand lifts seemingly of its own accord.

 

So far, Dean has lost every game with Death, and yet he is still whole, still in tact, still living and breathing and functioning like a normal human being.  
  
Except he has Death as a dinner guest, which, okay, honestly? Does  _not_  count as 'functioning like a normal human being'. But he ignores that part, and asks the other guy if he wants a hotdog or something, and maybe secretly hopes he'll say yes so that the hotdog might get stuck down Death's throat and choke him, but, well, that wouldn't really have worked anyways because you can't kill _Death_.  
  
 _I'm sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat._  
  
Logic just wasn't fair.  
  
  


\------

  
  
  
Death speaks in riddles, but he doesn't speak in rhymes, and Dean keeps thinking it would have been so much more fun if Sammy's kidnapper had been the next Dr. Seuss.  
  
He's been hanging out with Death and he can feel his mind decaying, but it's no big surprise that he would do  _anything_  to get his little brother back.  
  
"Where's Sam?" is always followed by,  _WITH ME._  
  
"Take me to him," is countered with,  _THERE IS NO NEED._  
  
"I'll kill you!" is greeted with nothing but silence.  
  
Dean swears he is about to fucking strangle Death to death.  
  
  


\------

  
  
  
When Dean does find Sam, it is without the Horseman's help.  
  
Sam is stoic, and cold, and he doesn't speak, but he isn't possessed. Dean flings a good cup full of holy water on him, and Sam doesn't even flinch.  
  
He doesn't even bitch about Dean's mistrust of him, either, and that is how Dean knows something is terribly wrong.  
  
Dean is scared, but he would never admit it, because he doesn't have a vagina, and there sure as hell isn't going to be any bright and shining knights come to save him from distress, so all he can do is  _keep his shit together_  and beat out that fleeting thought that, yeah, Sammy's body might be alive and well, but there doesn't seem to be anyone in the upper room, and Dean knows better than most that the  _body_  isn't what goes to Heaven or Hell and  _fuck fuck fuck_ , but he has to  _keep his fucking shit together_.  
  
Sammy's been playing with Death, and Death hasn't lost a game.

 

When Dean sees that black cowl again, it's accompanied by a scythe the size of fucking Manhattan, made of bone and sinew and bleached white and sharpened to a deadly point, and all he can do is stare and stare and stare because  _he really fucking wants that scythe_. If anything can kill Death, it's that. Sammy is laying in bed, and a few weeks have passed, and he hasn't spoken a single word. Dean has had to force-feed him his meals, because he seems to have forgotten that nourishment is a vital part of a continued existence, and it's sort of like taking care of a vegetable, but Dean would do  _anything_  for his little brother.  
  
Including kill Death.  
  
The thought beats inside his skull and suddenly he finds himself challenging Death to a game for Sammy's soul, and Death agrees.  
  
It is the most intense game of Twister Dean has ever played, but just as soon as Dean is about to lose, he snatches Death's monstrous scythe from the sidelines and  _stabs the fucker in the throat_. He pulls it out, and stabs again, out and in, and flesh is tearing, and he hears the sounds and he is reminded of Hell, but he doesn't even fucking care because  _he hurt Sammy_  is all Dean can think right now.  
  
Even though he finds it odd that the skin is pliable when the blood mingles with the bone-white blade, and he might be a little worried that he's enjoying this a little more than he ought to, but that doesn't really matter right now because  _Sammy, Sammy, Sammy_.  
  
Somewhere the weapon drops and Dean dives right into the mess without a thought or care in the world. His fingers grip at severed flesh and slip on crimson red, and he paints his face with the markings of his freshest kill.  
  
Death has unhinged him.  
  
He tears into this body, because Death said Sammy was with him, and so that meant Sam was  _inside of him_ , and isn't that just  _fucking clever_ ; for that smug, stoic little fucker to hide Dean's brother in his own unsuspecting meat suit.  
  
Dean digs and rips, he would use his teeth but the smell is atrocious and he thinks it would be counterproductive. Instead, he methodically strips the black coat open, tears apart the fabric covering up a pale chest, then dives into the chest with blunt nails. It's effective; the body is emaciated, fragile, and it gives easily beneath his hands.  
  
This is not Death -- he has fled -- but Sam might still be alive, so he continues to brutally massacre the body in front of him in the hopes of finding a remnant of his brother's soul.  
  
Sam's body is behind him, then, and a large, warm palm settles against Dean's shoulder, and Dean goes cold because--  
  
Because that isn't  _Sam_.

 

He ignores the hand, leans forward, pushes the hood back and stares at the face of the man he had just brutalized, of the person he had just torn apart from the inside out.  
  
Sammy had never been able to talk during their various, repetitive meetings, because his lips had been sewn shut and what must have been a branding iron had cauterized the flesh.  
  
He is screaming. His eyes are wide and bright and nearly bulging out of his head because he is  _screaming for Dean to stop_.  
  
Death leans back and trembles. Something leaves him, and Dean glances back and truly sees that the body he had been taking care of hadn't just been dead... it had been  _Death_.  
  
Death had made himself a replica of Sam, but the eyes couldn't lie, and now that Dean is lucid enough to look, it's almost ridiculous how easy it is to  _see_.  
  
The scythe is still lying by Sam's agonized body, and when the black-ensconced man takes a step towards the younger boy's form, Dean jerks his head to the side and  _snarls_.  
  
"You  _get away from him!_ "  
  
Death fazes through Dean, and Dean scrabbles for a purchase, but it is hopeless and he is helpless and all he can do is watch when the replica of Sam bows its head over the real deal and kisses Dean's brother on the forehead. Sam's struggles stop, and he falls limp, and Dean picks up the scythe stained in his brother's blood and starts slashing like a madman at the ghastly figure of not-Sam.  
  
But Death just looks at him with dead eyes, and now Dean can't tell who is who, because both Sammy's have  _dead eyes_ , and Dean is  _so angry_  he doesn't even know what to do with himself.  
  
He thinks he might cry, but he holds it back, and he stares at the body he had mutilated, at the body he had  _enjoyed_  mutilating, and then he looks at the scythe in his hands, and then he glances towards Death but Death is  _gone_.  
  
I am Death and he is me and the little voice in the back of his head kept saying  _you are mine_.


End file.
